Nail Polish Direct Haul, China Glaze at 20% Off... WINNING!

Ive been shopping, finally! Well online shopping but it still counts.
Nail Polish is a UK online nail polish retailer that stock all the good brands, they now even sell some gels.
There is a code for 20% off all China Glaze polishes so of course I had to make the most of it. These actually came in two deliveries as I bought some then decided I needed more.

Join me after the jump for all the names and details of the code!

Sally Hansen Water Marble

A couple weeks ago a won second prize in a give away on facebook run by the lovely Fee. You can check her out on instagram HERE. 

She sent me all these lovely goodies, arnt I lucky! 

To see what I created please join me after the JUMP! 

Fish Scales Nail Art and Tutorial

PRESS SAMPLE

This week I saw a lush nail art by Sammy from The Nailasarus and suddenly remembered that I had some fish scales stencils from Nail Stickrs that I still hadn't tried!

To see the tutorial video and what polishes I used, join me after the jump! 

Marcus Manis- Stained Glass

Today we have another mani from Marcus.

For people who are not regular readers of the blog or for Life in Lacquer newbies, Marcus is my father in law and also an artist. He comes around every now and then and paints my nails!!

I will be making a proper page for Marcus soon (which will be found above the main Life in Lacquer logo) so you can see all his nail art in one place. 

Today we wanted to do a mosaic effect nail art. Marcus loves mosaics and often makes mosaics with found items. You can take a look at his web page here 

Marcus used a white base and then various polishes to create this look. He then used black acrylic paint to outline the shapes. 

I am so sorry I didn't make a note of which polishes he used! 

We then matted it with Mentality Matte topcoat. 

What do you think? 

It really reminds me of beautiful stained glass!

Life in Lacquer Nail Art Challenge: BLUE featuring Video Tutorial

Another #lifeinlacquerjuly mani. How are you all liking the challenge so far? I hope your enjoying seeing others work on my Instagram!

Ive been totally overwhelmed by all the people taking part! I thought no one would so I am sooo happy you are all joining me on this!

Today is another very broad prompt...Blue. 

I chose to get my Nail Stickrs out for this one. Maybe it would have been more suited to the Geometric prompt but oh well :)

AND theres a couple videos to accompy this too! Im getting there with the whole video thing. I still find them quite hard and awkward to film but I am getting there. 

Again these are fast so I can put them on Instagram. Do you think I should make longer versions for Youtube? 

Here is how I did the gradient.....

 

And here is how I used the Nail Stickrs to create a sponge chevron.


I hope the videos go a little way in showing you how I did this look.
I am really interested to know what you think about them so please do let me know.

For this look I used Essie Butler Please, Avenue Maintain and Sweet Talker. I also used Moyra 304 on the chevron nail. 

All of this was one ontop of a white base

And then of course it needed some bling! These beautiful metal star charms are from Effect Beauty. I love them! They are slightly curved so fit to the nail really well unlike other flat charms, plus you get a decent amount for your money.

Soooo what do you think? Please check out the other blog entries from Life in Lacquer July below!

An InLinkz Link-up

**some of the products featured were sent to me as press samples. All opinions are my own**

Life in Lacquer Nail Art Challenge: GEOMETRIC

I am bowled away with the amount of people taking part and the positive feedback I have received! I have already found loads of new bloggers and nail artists, how about you?

Today's prompt is one of my fave nail art looks of all times. Geometric.

I actually did another look for this originally but I hated it so I did another. I had so many ideas but when I tried to do them they weren't turning out how I planned... One of those days where nothing went right LOL!

Glam Polish She Had A Lipstick Taser 

I love this polish! The base colour, the pink glitters, the crelly effect... EVERYTHING! Look at the way the glitter gives this polish so much depth. The hex glitter is very irregular in shape but I don't think that detracts anything from the polish.

I again used Nail Stickrs for the nail vinyls and Konad white stamping polish to do the designs.
The ring accent finger is Moyra 102 and I hand painted with acrylic paint for the pattern.

What do you think of my take on geometric? See others post from the #lifeinlacquerjuly challenge below and why not share some love and go leave a them comment :)

An InLinkz Link-up

*press sample, some products were provided for an honest review*

Polished By KPT Blue Is Beautiful Thermal

Oh how I love thermals and this is no exception. I think KPT thermals are some of the best as they are super reactive and the changes in colour are noticeable.

I own three KPT thermals and today i thought I would show you all Blue is Beautiful. Not the most imaginative name but its the polish that really counts!

I do tend to fine thermals are a bit thicker than normal polishes but I have read that that is to do with the amount of pigment needed to create a thermal.

On with the polish.....

I used three thin coats for the photos below

When COLD this polish is a deep blue. The glitter is a micro holo type glitter. The glitter is noticeable in its cold and warm state. It is very jam packed with glitter!

 This is a deep and jelly type of polish. The glitter builds up depth.

In its TRANSITION state the nails go from a very light and sheer glittery blue to the deep blue pictured above. It creates a lovely gradient effect.

In its WARM state the polish is quite sheer and you can see your nail line. As you all know I do not like a VNL but this polish is so so beautiful I'm almost able to ignore it. 

Almost.

I know I do say this a lot but I really really love this polish. Its colour change is very noticeable and I think that's a must when it comes to thermals. I mean if you cant really tell its changed then whats the point?!

This was also smooth on the nail so one coat of top coat was all that was needed.

What do you think of thermals? Do you own any?

Foil Squiggle Nail Art

I have wanted to try foils for so long so when Effect Beauty offered to send me some I jumped at the chance!
 I wanted to have a play and not, for now, go for the full nail foil coverage.

The foil comes rolled up in a plastic pot so its great for storage in ye olde Helmer. The actual sheet of foil is really long, I could do this nail art about 20 times I think! Obviously you would use more foil if you were doing a full nail.

This was really really hard to capture! 

I used a dotting tool to add the foil glue onto the nail in a random squiggly pattern. Then waited until the glue went from white to see through. I then placed and pressed the foil onto the nail and pulled it off. And this was what I was left with!!

In love with this, it catches the light and reminds me of a very exotic fish tail or something ha ha.

I used Mentality Polish Scoundrel. A black with a minute shimmer.

This foil and others are available from Effect Beauty and you can get 10% off with the code LACQUER :)

some of these products were sent to me for my honest review

Life in Laquerdaisical Tri-Thermal Review and Swatches

Today I have something very new and fun to show you! 

Okay a little background information first.... Alexia owns and runs Laquerdaisical. Alexia is a lovely lady who I message all my insane nail ideas too! I sometimes think about a polish I would love and then I got to Alexia to see if it is possible.... Turns out this one was.

Alexia decided to call this polish Life in Laquerdaisical as I helped with the basic idea. How cool is that! 

Okay so I have always loved thermals. I wanted more from thermals! And I had see some other brands doing a tri thermal thing so I took the idea to Alexia. 

Here's what she came up with! 

A blue that turns to a greeny blue that then turns to a dark purple!! It also features a pretty silver glitter.

This is four thin coats and no top coat.
This polish is smooth without topcoat. 

Okay so I couldn't photograph this for the life of me!! I can assure you I can see the blue to green blue change in real life. It is subtle mind you but its there. 

The purple comes up when you are really cold.... So its a nice surprise every now and then! 

This used to look so much better on my longer nails :( BOO to breakages! 

One thing I will mention is that I found the formula thicker than normal but Alexia has said she plans to change that on the new batch :) 

This polish and so many other BEAUTIFUL polishes are available from Laquerdaisicals new website!

This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are honest and my own! 

First Christmas Nails!! Snowflake Stickers

This is my first Christmas post EVER!! 

I have been sent these lovely snowflake stickers from Sparkly Nails to try out!

They are a bumpy 3D texture, spongy almost LOL! 

They come in various sizes and look fab with Color Clubs Otherworldly! 

Otherwordly is a bright blue jelly with holo glitter. Unfortunately you cant really tell its holo glitter on the nail but you can in the bottle. It basically just looks like silver glitter. 

Still pretty though! 

 The stickers can be purchased HERE 

**one or more of the items featured here have been sent to me for my HONEST review. Please see my disclaimer for more details**

Firework Nail Art

Ive not been around much lately.

I hope your all not missing me too much!! 

My nails have taken a battering... I have on broken my middle finger and the poor finger has developed some very sore skin :( 

But I have soldiered on and finally done some firework nail art!

These are stamped using the Festive Plate 5 by MoYou London. 

The base is Williamsburg by Color Club.

A lovely deep glitter blue and perfect coverage in two coats. 

I also used a pastel yellow, blue and white special stamping polish by Konad. 

How was your Bonfire Night? 

Did you get to see any fireworks?

Birds & Cats with Butterflies & Roses!

I just couldn't wait to give the new Sick Lacquer a try so here is my first one!

This is Butterflies & Roses!

3 thin coats, no base coat. Seche Vite to top it off. 

Couldn't resist putting something really cute and girly with this, so went with MoYou London's stamping plate called Kitty Collection 11.

I bloody love this polish. It has blue and pink hexes, pink micro glitter and cute pink butterflies! The formula is fab and there's good glitter coverage. I love the design as it really stands out against the background! 

The photos are a tad washed out as i had to use the flash. The light here is terrible today. All rain and no sun BooHooo

What do you think? Are you loving this girly design?

Dotty Daisies

I am in LOVE with dots at the mo. Ever since I got my Pro Plate 10 from Moyou, every mani has dots on LOL! In fact i am just about to put them on my feet!

The photo of this sucks... I ended up having to take a pic of this at night and I just couldn't get a great shot but I just have to put it up now, I cant wait!

As you can probably see that I only went and bloody knocked the middle bubble charm! Some night nothing works for me at all! 

This is Aquadelic by China Glaze and Konad in White. 

Aquadelic is a stunning greeny blue type bright pastel. One of my new fave polishes. I am holding on to the summer by using bright colours for every mani but to be honest I love getting to use my darker colours.

I love the fact that this polish matches the bubble charms EXACTLY! 

Like I have said I love this mani, would be perfect for spring! 

I have used Bubble charms before (HERE) and they are super easy to use. Just dont move them around too much after they are placed otherwise you run the risk of effecting the image. 

You can buy these Bubble charms from Sparkly Nails 


*some of these products were sent to me for an HONEST review. The views on this product are COMPLETELY my own.*

Mr Bump Nail Art!

I'm back baby!! 

Last week I dropped the laptop and smashed the screen DOH! 

I now have it back so normal blogging can resume!! 

In honor of the constant mishaps in my life, here's Mr Bump!

Products Used

Essie Avenue Maintain 

BarryM Confetti in Bubblegum 

BarryM Matt White

Acrylic Paint

Seche Vite top coat

This post is also the first post using my new Canon and the first time I have used watermarks. 

What do you think? Are watermarks necessary, do they detract from the photo? 

Accessorize Speckled Swatches

I purchased these from Superdrug a couple weeks ago on a 3 for 2 as i am really into glitters at the mo and I wanted to try these out.

Big apologises in advance of my TERRIBLE cuticles and side walls! Gross! No excuses, i will sort them :)

So first up is Damselfly. Here it is with 3 coats, no top coat.

 A light blue,almost turquoise with dark blue and silver glitter. This is my fave out of all three. All three polishes applied really well, i was actually surprised as i thought that with all the glitter i would get a rubbish cuticle line but in fact all these swatches had NO clean-up so that's a bonus. 

Next up is Dragonfly, also pictured with 3 coats and no top coat

 A green with blue hex's. This is my least favourite as i think this colour combination is a tad boring! 

Last up is Butterfly, you guessed it... 3 coats with no top coat.

A PVA glue style white base with red and black hex's. Loved this!

The formula was really good on all the polishes and the glitter distribution was fair too. I hate the lid on these! I have big ol' hands and its hard to use :( 

I loved the jelly type effect these had and it created depth as the glitter from the previous coats are slightly covered. 

Lovely Polishes all in all and there are a few other shades available. 

Buy from Superdrug HERE for £3.45

Indie Polish GIVEAWAY! Win 2 Love Nailz Polishes!

There is a beautiful nail polish that needs YOUR help! 

It is nameless and is searching for the perfect name.

Be in for a chance of winning TWO indie polishes From Love Nailz, whats more they will be CUSTOM DESIGNED BY YOU!! 

Talk about a prize of a life time!!

Here at Life and Lacquer i have been given a lovely blue with a pinky and blue holo type of glitter from indie polish brand Love Nailz. 
Love Nails is a Canadian brand made by the lovely Louise. You may have seen their polish in another of my posts. If you haven't check it out HERE :)

Here it is with two coats and Poshe topcoat. The first two pictures look more green but it was the only way I could capture some of the glittery goodness. I can assure you all these are the same polish! 

A lovely light blue with holographic glitter. It was really hard to photograph the true beauty of this polish. It catches the light and then you can see all the glitter.This polish has a really high glitter content. 

Great polish for the summer sun!

So time to get your thinking caps on! Will you go for a funny name or something inspired by a film or a song? Or maybe even something personal? 

ANYONE WHO ENTERED PREVIOUS TO THE 3/06/2013 WILL NEED TO RE ENTER

Its super easy to enter, all you have to do is follow the steps on Ralfflecopter below :) 

The more steps you complete the higher your chance of winning!

Please complete stepd honestly as all entries will be checked, so no saying you commented if you didn't and so on :P

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

 

 YOU MUST SUBMIT A NAME SUGGESTION FOR YOUR ENTRY TO BE VALID
 The Giveaway is open for residents in Europe, Canada and the USA. 

 Love Nailz make their own beautiful indie polish and ship internationally. Find them HERE

T&CS 

Open to Europe, Canada and the United States. Both custom nail polishes are full sized 15ml bottles. No substitutions. Love Nailz will have the rights to the name chosen for the nail polish, as blogged about on Life in Lacquer. The winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter, and winners notified through Facebook messaging (unless email is available) within 48 hours. If winner does not respond within 48 hours of notification, Rafflecopter will draw a new winner. All enquiries should go to brooklinmommy@rogers.com.